Untamed Memories
by Mikael-Macbeth
Summary: XXX ONE-SHOT, Hints at Xigbar/Demyx XXX A boy and a man, both without hearts, sit on a balcony and just remember the memories long-forgotten...


_Disclaimer: I don't own KH. But this is known._

**AN: Just warning ahead of time: this hints at XigDem. Not a lot, but it's there.**

**So... My mom works at an elementary school, and near the end of the year, she took me with her to help her with the kids. (She teaches LD, so she's got her hands full.) I got to spend time with a lot of little kids, and it got me to thinking about all I had been through. That's what inspired this: memories. I'm really proud of this one, actually. I hope you like it, too. C:**

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**"Untamed Memories"**

**by K.L.V. -Eden**

A park… no, a playground.

The sun, shining. The wind moving fast and unfettered through his hair. A swing, with rusted chain-link supports. He got a splinter in his rear when he tried the teeter-totter, and fell on his head on the monkey-bars.

Scabby knees. Bruises would line his legs and arms, but each one was a reminder: he was alive. He was wild and free in this jungle of crunching stones and screaming children.

Memories came and went.

These were real.

Many were real.

At least… he was certain to himself.

"I remember… a math teacher, I think. He would yell at me all the time. I never paid attention in class. He was always talking about… fractions? I didn't care. I was too busy trying to correct the '_m_' in my name. Somehow, it always turned out to be an '_n_.' I couldn't understand the concept of adding an extra hump to it."

He leaned his head back. The shining sun was now an eerie, glossy moon, and there was no wind. There were no swings, no teeter-totters, no monkey bars. He hadn't had a scab or a bruise in who knows how long.

He was no longer wild.

He was no longer free.

The older man smiled. His usual hard, fierce features were softened by the boy's memory, but only for a few moments. Sentiments simply weren't needed in his line of work.

"Maybe you remember these things," he said despite the distance in his voice, "but it doesn't mean that any of it ever actually happened. I could remember anything I wanted. I could've been that math teacher, for all you know."

The boy paused.

"Really?"

"Of course. An angered math teacher, a silly boy on a playground, your favorite dog in your back yard. Anything's possible. It doesn't mean anything, and even if it did, it's not like it matters now. Well, not until later, at least," the older man answered, leaning back beside the boy on the balcony.

The boy stared out contemplatively on the dead land surrounding the secluded sanctuary in which he had grown so fond of his existence. A tapestry of nonexistence.

"When things go back to the way they were, will I truly remember? Will everything be put back into place? Will the people who I think I miss have missed me back?"

The older man scratched the scar on his left cheek, deeply etched into his skin. It was a reminder of a long-lost heart.

"Who knows. Maybe. Wouldn't it be nice, to be like a friend gone on a vacation?"

The boy considered this, his aqua eyes scanning the barren city below with a hint of disgust.

"I remember… a city. But it was alive. With people. There were sounds, and laughter, and every scent I thought possible known to man. I remember music. A bar. Smoke. It was here that I learned what it truly meant to be alive. I never appreciated it before then, but here was the meaning of life—I was sure I was invincible. Impervious. Immortal."

The older man chuckled.

"Well, were you?"

"…No. I don't guess I was," the boy answered, the joy in his voice fleeting.

Life was fleeting, he thought. He hadn't ever believed it. Was he nineteen at the time? Had he any friends? He wondered if people missed him. He wished for people to miss him, longed for something to look forward to after this whole big mess was wiped clean. He wanted to rise from the ashes anew. He wanted to know what it meant to live again.

"What about you?" the boy asked, turning to the older man.

An eyebrow raised from the eye-patch concealing his right eye.

"Me? I don't know. Nor do I care. I'm here now, and that's all there is to it."

"But you _must_ remember something. _Anything_. Aren't there faces that flit in your vision and drive you insane when you can't remember where you recall them from?" the boy asked passionately.

"No. What's in the past is in the past," the older man answered, who had suddenly reached out to take the boy by the arm. The boy had expected the gesture to be rough, but it was gentle. "What's now is now."

The boy felt his cheeks take heat. Redden. It was an embarrassing feeling, all of the warmth in his body rushing to his face at once.

"Yes. You—you're right."

The older man smiled. He softened again. All of the years flew from his face. All he had seen, all that he actually remembered and never wished to speak of again—all of it dissipated as he looked the boy over. He was all he had been, before the memories had turned him into what he was at present. He adored him, more than he knew he should.

"Let's go, Demyx. Your mind doesn't belong in the realm of memories. It belongs here… with me."

The boy smiled. The memories seemed trivial, unimportant now. Whether or not they were real no longer mattered. He was here now, the most vital person to his existence tugging him along to where he wanted to be.

"You're right. Let's go, Xigbar."

His memories became muddled then. A shining sun, monkey-bars, and teeter-totters that were real seemed fake to him now.


End file.
